PHOENIX – An irritated Jeff Van Gundy ordered his struggling Knicks yesterday to decrease their excuse-making and increase their production.

Before the Knicks finished their three-game West Coast-trip-from-hell last night in Phoenix against the scorching Suns, Van Gundy sent a message to his three grumbling Gotham guns who have each wondered if the trio can share minutes without it affecting their respective rhythms.

“Minutes haven’t been a problem,” Van Gundy said. “Performance has. And we’re making a lot of excuses. Our every sentence starts with “it’s hard.”

“We’re an excuse team right now. We have to stop the excuses. We can make the roster makeup as our excuse, or we can win.”

They definitely haven’t won lately. The Knicks took a two-game losing streak into last night’s battle at America West Arena after scoring 74 and 75 points against Seattle and the Clippers, respectively.

“When we played well, we haven’t made excuses; when we haven’t played well, we’ve made excuses,” Van Gundy said. “It may be hard, but that’s our team. We’re either going to lose with what we have or find a way to get it right.”

Sprewell was the most vocal of the trio about wondering whether the three can coexist, going as far as to say that even in victory it could “take the fun out of it.”

The only thing missing has been Rice’s wife, Christina Fernandez, piping up about her husband’s diminished role.

Following the Clipper loss, Sprewell said, “It is difficult. I felt like early in the season that was the big question. Is it going to work? I’m not saying it can’t work. It is a little difficult, though. If Allan’s going good, you want to leave him in, but at the same time you want to get other guys an opportunity to play. What can you say? It’s just the roster we have now.”

Spree’s remarks were surprising because, unlike Houston, he has never been fussy. He just goes out and plays. But his back is still sore since his return from spasms and said yesterday if it continues to hurt he’s going to “shut it down” for a little while.

Sprewell seemed offended that Van Gundy would characterize his statements as making excuses.

“I never make excuses,” said Sprewell, who was shooting 30.1 percent entering the game last night. “I’m not playing to my potential. I’m playing in pain. That’s not an excuse. It’s just how it is. I didn’t mean it to come off like that. You just have to deal with things in life. You know how Jeff is.”

Van Gundy sees it differently.

“When you lose, everybody tries to figure out why instead of concentrating on playing better,” Van Gundy said. “The NBA is an excuse league, so that never surprises me. We just have to be focused on what we have to do to play better. We got to get all three of those guys playing well at the same time in the same game, which hasn’t happened.”

Van Gundy also mentioned the Knicks’ excessive sniping at the officials. The worst offenders have been Kurt Thomas and Chris Childs.

“A lot of things we need to do to play better, and it starts with our attitude toward improvement,” Van Gundy said. “We have got to quit blaming the referees on every call, quit blaming the rotation. There’s eight guys who play every night. They get plenty of minutes. Now play.”

Did the sight of Patrick Ewing Tuesday freak this club out? Oddly, Houston was on a four-game tear before Sprewell rejoined the team in Seattle Tuesday. Since then, Houston has registered two awful games, looking tentative, unsure of when he should shoot or pass. Before, Houston was aggressive, decisive and silky-smooth. Houston didn’t dispute the notion that Sprewell’s presence might have thrown him off.

“If you’re going to be on a good team you’re going to play with other good players,” Van Gundy said. “He hasn’t played well (on the trip). I don’t know that’s why. Him and Latrell have played effectively together for a long time.”